Digging into the Warner Brothers vaults

Proving once again that the folks at the Warner Archive Collection absolutely love movies, they have recently dug deep into the vaults to bring more classic, forgotten, historic, and just crowd-pleasing movies to the DVD marketplace. One of the oldest films to get some digital love from the Archive Collection is the Eddie Canton classic Whoopee (1930). The story is fairly simple: Sally Morgan is about to be married off to sheriff Bob Wells, but she’s really in love with Wanenis … except she is forbidden to marry him because he’s half Indian (remember, this is 1930). She enlists the aid of hypochondriac Henry Williams to help her get away from the wedding so she can be with the man she loves, but she leaves a note saying she and Henry have eloped, which sets Bob and Sally’s father after them to settle a score with poor unsuspecting Henry. And the film is also a musical (based on the Broadway hit) with lavish production numbers staged by the legendary Busby Berkeley.

While I love classic movies, musicals and Busby Berkeley production numbers, I never really warmed to the actual story or characters in Whoopee. The true star of the film is Cantor, famous for rolling his large eyes to emphasize a punchline (his nickname was Banjo Eyes), but his performance and persona were … odd is the best way to describe it. I was actually confused by the character’s sexuality. I really didn’t think the lead character would be gay — those people were usually relegated to supporting status to deliver witty asides — but I was unsure of how to take Henry, especially as he did everything he could to brush off the advances of his amorous nurse. To complicate matters, Henry gets into a scene of one-upmanship when he and another gentleman compare operation scars … by looking and reaching down each other’s pants while rolling around on the floor. It’s really one of those things that has to be seen to be believed (and probably would have never gotten past the watchdogs at the Hayes Office a few years later when the decency code was put into effect).

Besides being one of just a handful of Cantor films, Whoopee is historically significant for being one of the earliest films shot in full two-strip Technicolor. The Archive Collection DVD has not been remastered (the film itself underwent a restoration a few years back and that master was used for this DVD), but considering its age, the film looks remarkable. Unfortunately, I’m not sure what the film looked like back in 1930 so the color today looks to be more pastel, leaning to the pink side, rather than the full color spectrum we’re used to seeing in color films today. But the fact that the film still exists is enough of a reason for fans of the classics to want to own this DVD.

Also hitting DVD shelves recently was the second volume of The Bowery Boys collection, a 4-disc set containing 12 features (most of which run barely more than an hour). The Bowery Boys are an interesting comedy troupe and an acquired taste. Led by malapropist Leo Gorcey as “Slip” Mahoney and sidekick Huntz Hall as “Sach” Jones, the Boys get themselves into various predicaments in each film. I selected a couple of the titles that I thought would offer the most comedic enjoyment, Spook Busters and Ghost Chasers, but I found them difficult to really enjoy simply because I found Gorcey’s character so grating and abusive to the rest of the gang. The other issue I had was that I had seen these films done better and with much more humor by Abbott and Costello, and in fact, The Bowery Boys often took the plots from popular A & C films and redid them in their own style.

The Bowery Boys may not appeal to everyone, but the new DVD collection — pressed, not manufactured on demand — should make the fans of the series very happy. Each film has been remastered from the best 35mm elements available, and the picture clarity is terrific and pretty much blemish free. The mono audio also sounds terrific with little in the way of hiss or distortion. For a series of films made on the cheap between 1946 and 1955 (and the last even in widescreen), the folks at the Warner Archives have really shown The Bowery Boys some love. While they ended up not being my cup of tea, I tip my hat to the fine job done on bringing these films out of near obscurity and giving them a new lease on life, and maybe even a whole new generation will find and appreciate them.